


What Love is

by TheTypingWalrus



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Baby's First Fanfic, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Physical Abuse, Platonic Relationships, Recovery, Series of Vignettes, Slavery, Toxic Relationships, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTypingWalrus/pseuds/TheTypingWalrus
Summary: For slaves and living Philosopher's Stones, real love is hard to come by. But Hohenheim will find it, even if it takes him four hundred years.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Van Hohenheim, Father & Van Hohenheim, Trisha Elric/Van Hohenheim, Van Hohenheim & Pinako Rockbell
Comments: 31
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

Twenty-Three was as good as dead. At his feet, the overturned mop bucket rolled back and forth a few times before trundling to a stop, as if knowing escape was futile. Dirty mop water ran across the floor, streaming around table legs, flooding half the study in a trail that led like an accusing finger back to him. Beneath the spill, the once carefully precise chalk lines of Master's latest alchemy experiment lay smudged beyond recognition. It had taken him the last three hours.

Master's hand trembled in fury. Between his fingers, his stick of chalk snapped in two and when he leapt to his feet, eyes blazing, the knees of his robes were dark with Twenty-Three's sopping wet guilt.

"Hand it to me," he snarled, thrusting his hand out to the overseer standing beside him. 

Twenty-Three's legs trembled when he realized Master's hand was waiting for the overseer's ever present whip, but his bare, dirty feet remained rooted to the spot.

"I said _hand it to me!_ " Master hissed when the overseer failed to move fast enough. "I'll take care of this one myself."

The overseer deposited the whip in Master's palm, giving the unfortunate slave a dark look. Twenty-Three took an unconscious step back as Master advanced, but he knew better than to run, knew better than to protest or try to defend himself.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered. He could feel his muscles locking up, his heart drumming in his throat, his mind going blank in fear. He knew what was coming. He knew it would hurt. He knew it well in the previous scars on his back and the bruises on his skin. But he deserved it. He'd messed up. He hadn't meant to, but it had happened anyway and now he would receive the rightful punishment.

"I'm sorry!" he wailed as the whip cracked down. His back stung like fire. "I'm sorry!"

* * *

Twenty-Three was as good as dead. At his feet, the half-shattered auto-mail arm lay heavy and limp on the floor like a dead thing, killed by his clumsiness. Gears, not yet screwed into place, rolled all across the workshop. Loose wires splayed out in tangled knots. The once meticulously laid, complex half-built inner machinery lay in pieces on the floor, where he'd knocked it after brushing too closely against Pinako's work bench. It had been built from scratch, a new design. The fingers, she'd said, were state of the art. They'd be capable of grasping motions so far unheard of once they were finished. It had taken her _weeks._

"Ah, _shit!"_ she managed to spit between clenched teeth. Her face turned nearly purple, a vein pulsing in her forehead. She bounced up from her seat and turned her gaze, half mad with frustration, up to him. "What did you go and do that for, you big oaf?! That'll take _ages_ to fix!"

Her hand trembled in fury, fingers clenching around her wrench. The tool looked suddenly very heavy—harsh, cold steel, sure to dent any skull it swung against.

Twenty-Three took an unconscious step back as she stormed towards him. "I'm sorry," he said. He could feel his muscles locking up, his heart drumming in his throat, his mind going blank in fear. He knew what was coming. He knew it would hurt. He raised his arms in the pitiful hope of protecting his face. "I'm sorry!"

No blow came. The wrench stayed hanging inert at Pinako's side. 

She gave him a strange look. "Relax, I'm not gonna _hit_ you, Hohenheim." She stooped down to gather the many myriad pieces of her creation scattered in front of him.

Hohenheim lowered his arms slowly, watching her pick up gears and screws in a daze. She was grumbling to herself, but she made no move towards him. She stuffed the wrench absently in the pocket of her jumpsuit, where it sat, totally harmless.

He should probably help, he realized belatedly. Gingerly, half expecting some violent outburst, he knelt and dug beneath the workbench for an escaped washer.

Pinako peered over at him, brows lowered in…concern? "You okay?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," he mumbled. "I really am sorry."

She tutted. "You'd _better_ be. But it's alright. I know you didn't mean to." Her eyes flicked back and forth, searching his face. Their deep, earthen brown penetrated him, intense and knowing, leaving no doubt she'd guessed…something. "You wanna talk about it?"

Hohenheim handed her the washer without looking at her and went back to hunting under the bench. He was pretty sure he'd seen a few nuts roll under there as well. "No," he said.

Pinako watched him for a long moment, then sighed, adding the washer to her pile of gathered bits and bobs. "Alright," she said, "but I'm here if you change your mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was dragged into the world of fanfiction to fill a very specific Hohenheim void but it's a long fic that won't be posted anytime soon so I took a break from my self-indulgent writing to write something even more self-indulgent. Cheers?


	2. Chapter 2

"You're leaving?" asked Homunculus.

Hohenheim paused on his way to the door, in the middle of tying a coin purse to his belt. "Just for a little while. It's time I got out for a bit. I've hardly left the study for a week after all." 

What he wouldn't give for a little fresh air and sunlight. He'd be pale as a Drachman barbarian at this rate. And considering how rarely Homunculus seemed to approve of his friends, lately he'd had so few people to talk to it was driving him mad. As much as he appreciated Homunculus and everything it had done for him, sometimes he was tired of sitting in the study. Sometimes he was tired of talking only to Homunculus and to his master. Sometimes he thought just _maybe_ that he might feel lonelier and more confined now than he'd been even when he was a slave.

Somehow, without shoulders or a spine, Homunculus managed to droop. "That's nothing. I'm here _all the time_. Why don't you stay here longer with me?"

Hohenheim tried to chuckle but his gut fell with guilt. It was true. Hohenheim was tired of the study even when he left several times a day to eat and sleep. Homunculus, on the other hand, only ever left when Hohenheim or Master carried it out. It must be terribly boring to hang in one spot all day and all night without even the ability to flip the pages of a book to amuse itself. "I can't! I have plans."

Homunculus bobbed lower, as if it might sag at the bottom of its flask if it had a body to sag with. "Fine, fine…Don't mind me…I'll just sit here and stare at the wall."

Hohenheim sighed sympathetically. "Homunculus…"

"Go on!" cried Homunculus, its voice rising in dramatic resolve. "I've got paint to watch dry! Go do whatever it is you little humans do with your arms and your legs and your ability to go where you please, and leave me to do what I do without any of that. Which is _nothing._ "

Hohenheim stepped back towards the desk. His insides were practically _squirming_ now. "Homunculus, please, don't be like that! I'll be back before you know it, I promise."

"Sure, you will," Homunculus grumbled.

Hohenheim adjusted his coin purse with a weary huff and turned back to the door. "I'll see you in a little bit, alright?"

"Whatever," said Homunculus. A pause as Hohenheim strode away from the desk, then just as he was about to leave the room: "Where are you going, anyway?"

Hohenheim stopped again. "Andal and I have plans to meet at the pub for lunch."

Homunculus tutted. "Andal? You know he hates you, right? Because your master liked you better?"

Hohenheim turned to blink over his shoulder. "I mean, I know we became rivals for a while, but we're both freedmen now. It shouldn't matter anymore." 

Andal had been sold to an elderly widow who recently died and, having no heirs, set him free in her will. There was no point in competing now with no masters to win favor from. And before Master noticed Hohenheim and started tutoring him, before Master granted him the right to be called by a name and emancipated him as his alchemy assistant, he and Andal had been friends. Hohenheim would be lying if he pretended he didn't miss that.

Homunculus flipped over in its flask, its single, red eye opening to give him a dubious half-lidded look. "Of course it matters. Don't tell me you forgot about the time he broke your master's vase just to get you in trouble—or are you that half-witted that you don't remember?"

Hohenheim puffed up. "I'm not half-witted! Of course I remember! But he's the one who suggested lunch! It's been a long time since we saw each other. We've let it go."

"Hah!" cried Homunculus, and Hohenheim was sure that if they were two humans talking with no glass between them, Homunculus would have laughed unkindly in his face. "You really are stupid if you think he's let it go! Even a dwarf in a flask like me knows enough about selfish, petty humans to see he's just using you for his own benefit. You're famous these days! If he's seen in public with the Homunculus Keeper, it'll boost his own standing! _And_ it'll damage your reputation. You're a public figure. People will talk if they see you in such an establishment."

Hohenheim hesitated doubtfully. "You don't really think that's the only reason he wants to see me, do you?"

"Of course it is, moron. You're lucky you've got me to point out the obvious."

Hohenheim's jaw clenched. "I'm not a moron."

"You are if you think he suddenly likes you again! Him…your master…Everyone around here just wants something from you. Same as they always want something from me." Homunculus spun moodily in its flask, its singular eye winking out for a moment and then opening again to pin Hohenheim in a languid stare. "It's always only the two of us who actually give a shit about each other. You actually _see_ me. And I'm the only one who's ever actually cared about _you_. You're at least smart enough to know that, aren't you? You know that I'm the only one who truly cares about you?"

Hohenheim looked away. "Of course I do."

"Good," said Homunculus. "You're an intelligent man. Don't bother talking to Andal. He's a waste of both of our time."

Hohenheim stood uncertainly for a long moment in the doorway. Outside, the sun and the crowds on the street beckoned to him. Andal would be arriving at the pub any minute. Meanwhile, back in the study, Homunculus hung small and lonely inside its flask, surrounded by books it couldn't open and four walls of whitewashed paint long since dried. 

With an enormous, regretful sigh, Hohenheim removed the purse from his belt and sat back down at the desk.

* * *

"You're leaving?" asked Trisha.

Hohenheim paused on his way to the door, coat hanging from his shoulders. "Just for a little while." His gut fell with guilt. 

Trisha had sprained her ankle recently and insisted it be allowed to heal at a normal pace rather than accept a quick fix with alchemy. She couldn't go far without help and had been stuck inside all week. 

"I'll come right back afterwards, I promise!" he insisted. 

He'd been hovering over her ever since she tripped over that blasted gopher hole, and while he'd happily wait on her hand and foot for the rest of her life, lately there had been so many people chattering at him it was driving him mad. Every single disembodied Xerxian soul in his head had a great long laundry list of opinions on how best to look after an injured spouse, and if he didn't get out of the house, didn't find a way to drown them out just for a little while, he thought he might explode.

Trisha laughed. "Take your time. You should get some fresh air."

Her foot was propped up in front of her while she sat in her favorite armchair, reading her fourth book this week. It must be getting terribly boring sitting in one spot all day idling her time away when she was usually so active, so busy tending her garden and taking long walks through town.

"I don't have to," he said, his insides practically _squirming_. "I can stay and keep you company."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't worry about me. I can look after myself for a little while." She nodded towards the crutches he'd transmuted for her out of some old firewood. "I can get around if I need to."

Was that an admonishment? He knew it. He should stay. She would only be upset with him if he didn't. He started to take off his coat.

Trisha hummed a noise of concern. "What happened to going out? Where were you planning to go?"

He hesitated. "…I thought I'd join Pinako at the pub…"

It was all he could do to stop himself from flinching. Trisha knew Pinako. Trisha liked Pinako. But Trisha was the one he had made a home with, the one who cared so much about him she'd devoted her life to him. She had every right to be jealous, to be angry that he was wasting their time with someone else.

Trisha beamed up at him. "Pinako? Good, she's always been a wonderful friend to you." She turned back to her book. "You should spend more time with friends like her."

Hohenheim blinked. "She insults me on a daily basis." 

Surely this was reason enough to assume that maybe Pinako hated him. He didn't think that was the case, but maybe he was stupid. Perhaps he's been a moron for letting her string him along for so long.

Trisha planted her face into her book and all but cackled. "She does, doesn't she?" she said. "That's how you know she likes you though. If she _didn't_ like you, she wouldn't bother insulting you. She'd just sock you in the face."

Hohenheim's mouth tilted upwards. That was certainly true. He'd seen it happen enough times to various unlucky bullies. He was surprised to find Trisha agreeing with him in this assessment. Then he tilted his head in thought. Actually, he should be surprised he was surprised. Trisha had never said a bad word about Pinako after all. She never said a bad word about anyone.

"Pinako cares about you," Trisha said, lowering the pages of her book enough to smile at him over. "It makes me happy to see you spend time with people who care."

Warily, he began to put his coat back on again. "Well, if you're sure…I'll just go drop by to visit her for a few drinks."

"Alright," said Trisha.

"But I'm only having one! I would never drink myself into a stupor at a time like this. I'm not stupid!"

Trisha chuckled. "Of course not, dear."

"You need someone completely sober looking after you. Intelligent!"

"I trust you, honey," she grinned.

"If you need me, though…"

"Just go, dear."

"If you need anything at all…"

"I'm quite alright. Go enjoy a night out for a change."

"I don't need to go. Perhaps it's better if I stay."

Trisha mimed throwing her book at him with a full-bellied guffaw. _"Just go!!!"_

Hohenheim stood uncertainly for a long moment in the doorway. Outside, the setting sun and the cheery lights of town beckoned to him. Pinako would be arriving at the pub any minute. Meanwhile, in her armchair, Trisha settled down, amused and content, surrounded by books and a puzzle to keep her busy and the four cozy walls of the comfortable home they shared.

With a reassured, happy hum, Hohenheim settled his coat on his shoulders and walked out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Homunculus had always said everyone just wanted something from him. Hohenheim should have learned long ago not to open himself up to people, not to give anything away when he knew they would simply take it for themselves and never give it back. But knowledge was something to be shared. And he had always liked teaching.

"Young Mr. Xu, what elements is this made of?" Hohenheim prompted. He held up for his student's inspection the large gnarled branch he had plucked from the ground.

Xu Zheng, heir of the Xu clan barely restrained a yawn. Hohenheim had been delighted when Zheng sought him out to request his tutelage. He had waxed poetic about using what he learned for the benefit of all Xing, of bringing peaceful unity to the warring clans, and he clearly had the conviction and dedication to carry it through. However, today even the crisp mountain air and the bright morning sunshine in this clearing where Hohenheim preferred to conduct their lessons seemed to be doing little to wake up his wandering attention.

Zheng accepted the branch with a limp wrist as if it were the fifth bowl of tasteless gruel he had to eat that day and ran his eyes over it in listless boredom. "Carbon," he said.

"Yes…" said Hohenheim, trying to be encouraging. This was the most obvious answer. Every living or once living thing had carbon in it. "What else?"

"Oxygen," Zheng sighed.

Hohenheim waited, but he failed to add to the list or go into percentages. Hohenheim pursed his lips. Zheng had been like this all morning.

Hohenheim stood up and brushed bits of leaves off his knees, signaling a pause in the session. "Is there something on your mind, young Mr. Xu? You seem distracted."

Zheng stood as well, discarding the branch without a glance. He ran a hand through his hair and huffed air through his nose in annoyance. "What's the point in all this?" he asked. "What do these elements have to do with anything?"

Hohenheim raised an eyebrow. "You've already uncovered the meaning of the riddle of 'one is all, all is one.' Surely you know how necessary it is to fully understand the makeup of the world around you in order to accomplish transmutation."

"Yes!" Zheng cried, exasperated. "But what for? What's so important about transmutation? Why do I need to learn to change one thing into another?"

Hohenheim stared at him, baffled. "You asked me to teach you. Is this not what you wanted?"

"I asked you to share your knowledge with me! To show me how to do what you do."

"Yes," said Hohenheim, "and your alchemy is coming along nicely. With time, I'm sure—"

"It's not the alchemy that I want from you, Master!"

Hohenheim's mouth snapped shut for a moment in utter confusion. "Then what do you want?"

Zheng moved closer and his dark eyes, locked on him, burned with intense desire. "Immortality."

When Hohenheim took a step back, the leaves on the ground crunched like dry bones underfoot. 

Zheng followed. "Surely you are aware of the incredible things people have been saying about you. The Western Sage—"

"A ridiculous epithet," Hohenheim scoffed. He took another step back.

Zheng took another step forward. " _The Western Sage—_ " he persisted— "works miracles with his hands—"

"Simple transmutations, as I've been showing you—"

"—suffers neither illness nor injury—"

"The medical uses of alchemy—"

"— _And—_ " Zheng continued. He stopped in place and Hohenheim realized he had nearly been chased out of the clearing. Zheng was quite a tall man—strong and barrel-chested—and when he raised his chin, teeth bared in a false smile like a wolf smelling prey, something flashed in his face. "—the Western Sage _never_ _grows old._ "

Greed, Hohenheim realized. Greed was flashing in Zheng's face.

"Immortality," Zheng purred. "Teach it to me."

In Hohenheim's head, what remained of the people of Xerxes burst into furious chatter. The present cool freshness of the mountain breeze disappeared beneath the past stench of a country of corpses. Instead of the peaceful forest, he saw stretched out before him streets littered with the dead. Instead of the serenity of bird song, he heard the terrible silence of a land where no one lived any longer, and he heard the sound of his own voice calling out desperately for friends who would never answer. 

He thought of all the people he had known in Xing—his previous students with whom he'd spent so many rewarding hours encouraging their potential, the locals in the village at the foot of the mountain who were always so kind to him when he descended for a bite to eat and a bit of company, the descendants of the merchants who had saved him in the desert to whom he would always owe his gratitude. He imagined them dead, their bodies littering the floors of their homes in the wake of another man's pursuit of everlasting life. Xerxes had been killed by the greed of its king. He could not allow Xing to follow in its footsteps.

"Please…" he breathed, "Do not ask this of me…"

Zheng frowned. "You're my teacher. Have I not been a faithful student? Will you not teach me?"

"No! I will _not_. Never ask me this again."

Zheng gawked at him. "But Master!"

"No!"

"Master, if I am to be emperor, there is no better way to unify the empire, to win the clans' loyalty and respect than with powers like yours. And _that means immortality!"_

"You don't know what you're asking for," growled Hohenheim. "There are other ways of bringing people together, other goals more worthy of your and your subjects' efforts."

Zheng dropped to his knees at Hohenheim's feet and bowed his forehead to the ground, hands clasped, the very picture of _pleading. "Master, please, I beg you!"_

"No."

"Please!"

"No!"

_"Please!"_

_"No!"_

Zheng surged to his feet, eyes on fire, muscles of his arms tense. He stormed forward with all the ferocity of a charging bull, his hand raised, and Hohenheim _flinched_. He could feel his muscles locking up, his heart drumming in his throat, his mind going blank in fear. Zheng's fist slammed into the tree beside him. Bark splintered and pattered onto the ground. " _GIVE IT TO ME!"_

Hohenheim straightened, spine rigid, jaw tense. He stared over Zheng's shoulder at the tranquil scenery of the mountainside. In the distance, the movement of birds continued, unbothered by this exploding speck of ambition among the otherwise calm of the tall white pines. Smoke curled up from the village below, lazy with domestic content, small dark smudges in the vast blue air.

All emotions wiped away from Hohenheim's face, leaving only certainty behind. "Leave," he said.

Zheng's fist snapped back as if he'd been burned. "…What?"

Hohenheim turned away towards the trail leading up the mountain, winding its way to the small hut where he'd made his home for the past many decades. Clearly he had stayed put for too long. "You are expelled as my pupil."

_"What?!"_

Hohenheim started up the path. How long had he been in Xing now? Ninety years? A century? Such a time period had once seemed mind boggling, but now he had let it pass far too easily in the full view of others without paying enough thought to the consequences.

"Master!" Zheng started after him. "Mas—!"

Without turning back, Hohenheim sent a jolt of transmutation energy into the earth through his feet and a great stone wall sprang up to block the path.

"Master!" he could hear Zheng calling from the other side of it. The rumble of shifting rocks and the ring of transmutation sounded behind him as Zheng attempted to remove the barrier, but Hohenheim simply put it back without stopping.

_"MASTER!"_ Zheng wailed, but Hohenheim did not look back.

A few days later, Hohenheim had packed up all his belongings and as far as the locals of the mountain knew, the Western Sage vanished.

Eventually, Hohenheim learned that Zheng did exactly what he'd set out to do, winning the loyalty of the clans with the claim that he had been taught the strange and magical art of alkahestry by the legendary Western Sage himself and been granted even immortality. A lie, certainly, but one that people believed. When Zheng eventually grew too old to rule and died, the people of Xing were told that he had reached enlightenment and, having fulfilled his duties in the mortal world, had gone to the sacred islands to join his beloved instructor among the immortals. Meanwhile, Hohenheim had found himself dodging an endless string of Zheng's political opponents and other power seekers. Whenever he was found, he became hounded first by those begging to be taught immortality, then by warriors and bounty hunters seeking to capture and force the secrets out of him, and finally—when he proved impossible to persuade or catch—by assassins hoping in vain to prove him mortal and Emperor Xu Zheng a fraud.

For the sake of his own power, Zheng solidified Hohenheim's admittedly strange reputation into a linchpin of Xing's legends and culture, inflating a humble alchemist into a central titan of the empire's mythology, all while wiping away who Hohenheim truly was. His true thoughts were ignored. His name was forgotten. 

It was for the best, in the end, that he left Xing in search of lands where he could better remain anonymous. But even centuries later, although he remembered the country itself with fondness, he could never hear mention of Xing's Western Sage without the sour taste of bile rising in his mouth. He felt sick at the memory of it all. Used.

Homunculus had always said that everyone just wanted something from him. Homunculus was right.

* * *

Homunculus had always said everyone just wanted something from him. Hohenheim should have learned long ago not to open himself up to people, not to give anything away when he knew they would simply take it for themselves and never give it back. But knowledge was something to be shared. And he had always liked teaching.

"Edward, what's this?" Hohenheim prompted. He held up for the child's inspection the large colorful block in his hand, decorated with the first letter of the Amestrian alphabet. 

Edward snatched it away with small, stubby fingers. "'A!'" he chirped, grinning hugely.

"Very good! Do you know any words that start with 'A?'"

"Apple!"

"Yes!" said Hohenheim, encouraging. "What else?"

"Ants!" cried Edward. He flailed the block up and down a few times, thinking. Then his eyes lit up and he pointed across the room. "Al!"

Watching them from his spot on the living room rug, Alphonse giggled and blew a spit bubble.

"That's correct!" Hohenheim congratulated. "Al's name does start with an 'A'!" He held up the next block. "And what about this one?"

Edward studied it carefully, less certain this time. "…'B,'" he decided.

"Yes, good! It sounds like 'buh!' What words start with 'B?'"

Edward plopped the 'A' block on the floor and took the 'B' one, placing it haphazardly on top. "Baby!" he said, looking again at Alphonse. "Bird!"

"Yes!"

Edward looked up at him and smiled. "Bâbâ!"

Hohenheim choked. "What did you say?" he managed to get out.

Edward had developed an increasingly large vocabulary over the last several months. His first word had been his brother's name. He could also say "Mama" and "apple" and "ants" and "baby" and "bird." He could say "doggy" and "kitty" and name a few emotions and the names of lots of colors, and a few other things that his toddler mind had deemed important. But he had yet to call Hohenheim anything. When he wanted his father's attention, he pulled on his pant leg or shrieked or made grabby-hands at him, but he hadn't figured out 'father' or 'dada' or 'dad.'" Trisha, however, much to Hohenheim's flustered protests, had convinced him to teach her the Xerxian word for 'dad' and then taken to prompting Edward with it at every opportunity.

"Look, Edward, it's Bâbâ!" she would say whenever Hohenheim entered the room, and "Who's that, Ed?" whenever Edward toddled into the study to stare at him as if watching some strange and baffling creature. Hohenheim wasn't sure how to feel about it. He supposed he must have assumed that Edward would call him 'Dad' eventually, the way Amestrian children do, and that was perfectly logical, because that's what Hohenheim was. But 'Bâbâ' somehow sounded much more intimate—much more real. The Xingese also used 'baba', but the pronunciation was a little different. Hohenheim hadn't heard anyone say it the Xerxian way in over four hundred years. And after four hundred years, he had certainly never expected to be addressed by it.

"Bâbâ!" Edward repeated, tone cheerful. He leaned forward and placed his two little hands on Hohenheim's cheeks, looking directly at him with such clear-eyed certainty that there was no room for doubt that he knew exactly what he was saying. "Bâbâ!" he said again, turning to Alphonse and pointing at their father, prompting.

"Bbhbhbt!" babbled Alphonse gamely.

Hohenheim burst into tears.

Edward patted at his cheeks clumsily, looking concerned. "Bâbâ sad?" he asked. 

He didn't understand. Of course he could have no idea the full weight of what he'd said. He knew nothing of Xerxes or extinct peoples or four centuries of loneliness. But in this single moment, the truth, the reality, of what was happening slammed for Hohenheim into clear focus, like fogged glass turning crisp and unblemished. These children weren't just children. They weren't just his sons. These were _HIS SONS._ And he would do anything for them. Hohenheim would cross the world on foot, would tear down the moon, would move _heaven and earth_ for his children if they asked it of him. They were his _pesarhâ_ , his sons, and he was their bâbâ.

He pulled Edward into his lap and then Alphonse too, wrapping them in one of the very few hugs he allowed himself for such perfect, untainted creations. "No," he breathed though his tears. "Bâbâ is very happy."

These children trusted him unquestioningly. They loved without restraint. They cared nothing for his knowledge or status or immortality. He could offer power, could offer everlasting life, could pull from his chest a piece of the coveted Philosopher's Stone itself—the thing which had destroyed his home and his people, the thing that had forced him into hiding, the thing that whole empires would gladly fight wars over—and he could hand it to Edward and the boy would simply toss it aside, just like that, so he could share with his father a list of words starting with the letter 'C.' 

For hundreds of years Hohenheim had hidden what he was for fear of the greed of powerful men. And before that, for his entire human life in Xerxes, he had been caged by the desires of his master and his peers and the dwarf in the flask. They wanted obedience from him. They wanted blood from him. They wanted the coattails of power and fame from him. Even Homunculus, who had claimed to be the only one who truly loved him, had wanted his heart and mind and soul and eventually even his likeness all to itself.

But Edward and Alphonse, with their big, innocent eyes, and hearts so full of love it was surely a miracle it could fit in those tiny bodies, wanted none of that. When they looked at him all they saw, all they wanted, was their bâbâ.

Eventually, when Hohenheim finally _did_ offer the Philosopher's Stone—himself, the legendary miracle and terrible monster that so many had fought and killed for—to Edward and Edward was old enough to understand what he was being given, his son shot the idea down with fury in his eyes. 

"Maybe you are a living Philosopher's Stone," Edward snarled, "but I'm not gonna sacrifice innocent souls! It's our fault we lost our bodies!"

This child—no, this _young man_ —had spent years hunting for the Philosopher's Stone, for _Hohenheim_ , without realizing who he was actually chasing. He had long since left behind the simple life of 'ABCs' and apples and birds and been thrust, much too young, into a world of darkness and pain and struggles for power. Yet when he finally found what he'd been seeking, when Hohenheim offered it to him willingly, he didn't take it. He didn't want it.

He no longer called Hohenheim 'Bâbâ.' He didn't deign to call him 'Dad' or even 'Father' and that hurt, but Hohenheim had lost the right to be called any of those things when he failed to be there when they needed him, so he said nothing about it. Yet, still, even with no childish attachments to the man who should have been there to raise him, Edward did not see Hohenheim as a means to an end as so many others had. He stood in front of him, anger in the squared set of his shoulders, indignation in the sour curl of his lips, and he was one of the only people Hohenheim had ever encountered in four hundred years who saw him and the people inside him as human beings. Edward possessed the incredible wisdom not to ask for anything and in that moment Hohenheim swelled with pride.

Homunculus had always said everyone just wanted something from him. Homunculus was wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

Hohenheim stuffed a stick of flint and a small cooking pot into the pack he'd found in the palace stables. He wished he could take a camel as well but they had all died with everything else in Xerxes. He tried not to think about their great, spindly-limbed bodies lying in motionless heaps he'd had to step around. Now he stood in the kitchens hurriedly packing as much food and water as he could feasibly carry.

He was, perhaps, not doing a great job of it. He dropped one jar before he'd even taken a step across the room with it and pinto beans went skittering all over the floor. His hands were shaking. He should probably be planning all this better, but he couldn't find it in himself to think straight. His thoughts felt scrambled, flitting away before he could focus on any on them, and the voices of the souls inside him tickled at his brain, sometimes in whispers, other times in overwhelming screams that made him want to curl into a ball until they stopped.

"Hohenheim!" called _that_ voice in the hallway and Hohenheim froze, barely breathing. "Hohenheim, where have you gone?"

The slap of bare feet against tile drew closer and Hohenheim willed himself to disappear, hoping that they would pass him by. No such luck. Homunculus appeared in the doorway, looking just as eerily like his reflection as he had when he first revealed what he'd done, first revealed that he had used Hohenheim's blood and killed all his people in order to create himself a body outside the flask. Hohenheim wanted to run away at the sight of him, wanted to turn tail and never see his own stolen face leering back at him again.

Homunculus' eyes flickered across the bag on the counter and the beans scattered across the floor. "Are you going somewhere, Hohenheim?"

Hohenheim forced down the hysterical urge to laugh. He gestured at the cook and kitchen slaves sprawled on the ground, interrupted from their early morning breakfast preparations by the end of the world. "Do you expect me to stay here?!" He turned back to his pack so he wouldn't have to look at him. "You have your arms and legs like all us little humans now. You don't need me to entertain you anymore."

There followed a momentary silence as Hohenheim packed a large bag of raisins, then the soft pats of Homunculus entering the room. Hohenheim tensed, hunching his shoulders around his ears.

"Perhaps," said Homunculus, "but I never said you could go."

"Never sai—!" Hohenheim choked. "What, are you my master now?"

"No," said Homunculus, having the audacity to sound hurt. "I'm your friend."

"My friend?" Hohenheim did laugh this time and it came out just as hysterical as he'd expected. It was a shrill and bitter sound. Perhaps he was going mad. He certainly had the voices in his head to prove it. "At least when my master kept me in chains he was honest about it!"

Homunculus, Hohenheim could feel, was now standing directly behind him. "I simply want what's best for you. What are you planning to do? Wander out into the desert and stumble around until a sandstorm catches you? Such a fate would be worse than death. Now that you're immortal, you would simply be buried alive for thousands of years."

"Then you should have let me die!" Hohenheim spat. "You should have let me die like everyone else! Why keep me alive!?"

"Don't be stupid; it's always been the two of us, remember? I'm the only one who cares about you."

" _Don't—"_ Hohenheim hissed, fingers clenching around a bowl of fruit "—call me _stupid!_ I'm sick of it!" He whirled around, finally, to face his doppelganger, jaw clenched, and his gut lurched at the sight of him but he was too angry just now to care.

Homunculus folded his hands in front of him and lifted his chin, pompous as ever. "I am a being of the Truth. I simply state things as they are."

" _FUCK_ you!"

"You need not fear the sandstorms if you know how to use your new powers properly. Allow me to teach you, to be your instructor as I was before."

"No way in hell," Hohenheim growled.

"You need me, Hohenheim. You must stay."

"I don't need you. I'm not letting you trap me anymore!

Homunculus' eyes flashed, his expression growing cold in the face of Hohenheim's defiance. "You're being foolish."

"Stop _calling_ me things like that!" Hohenheim turned back to his bag, shoving an entire handful of ripe plums inside with unnecessary force. It was a terrible idea—they'd spoil and be squashed almost immediately—but he couldn't bring himself to care. "I'm leaving and that's final."

Homunculus' hand slammed down on the bag, pinning it shut. "You will _not_ go; I won't allow it. You do not have my permission!"

Hohenheim wrenched the bag away with a furious growl and was gratified when he succeeded. He stepped out of reach with a glare and returned, very pointedly, to packing. "Your permission means nothing anymore, _Dwarf_."

Homunculus followed and, as he advanced, he seemed to swell like a gathering storm cloud. "You are too ignorant of your abilities to leave!" he growled. He ripped the bag from Hohenheim's hands and threw it to the floor. "Without me, you'd still be an illiterate, clumsy, pathetic slave!" Red sparks lit up at his feet and, as Hohenheim watched in horrified amazement, a tower burst up out of the floor with no transmutation circle at all, rushing up towards the ceiling, then it curved downwards and smashed into the travel pack with a deafening _crunch_. Food splattered everywhere. "Without me, you're slow! Obtuse! A brainless idiot!" 

More red sparks began to spit and jump at Homunculus' feet and Hohenheim cringed away from him. He could feel his muscles locking up, his heart drumming in his throat, his mind going blank in fear. He knew what was coming. He knew it would hurt. 

"Without me," Homunculus hissed, "out there you won't last a year!"

Again, the floor erupted.

Adrenaline coursed through Hohenheim's body. The voices in his head shouted and wailed. An unfamiliar power—a pulsing alien heat—surged through him. Red lightning of his own crackled around his sandals and the next thing he knew a wall had lurched up in front of him and blocked Homunculus' attack. The two transmutations slammed into each other with the booming crash of stone on stone, making the whole room shake, before crumbling into a pile of ceramic and rock.

For a moment everything went still. Hohenheim stared at the ruins of the kitchen floor and then at his own feet, panting so harshly his entire chest heaved up and down, unable to comprehend what he'd done.

Homunculus brushed off his robes with a cough and tucked his hands into his sleeves, eyeing him with a half-lidded, approving glint. "Very good, Hohenheim."

Hohenheim's head snapped up and they stared at each other for a long moment in silence. Then Hohenheim took one step back, another, and then he turned and ran.

"Where do you think you're going?!" Homunculus' voice called after him. _"Hohenheim!"_

Hohenheim didn't stop.

 _"You're a fool!"_ His voice was more furious than Hohenheim had ever heard it. His anger, flung at Hohenheim's fleeing back, was as red as soul-burning transmutation energy. As hard as pulverized kitchen floors. "I will destroy you, Hohenheim! If you go, the next time we meet, I will _tear you apart!"_

Hohenheim fled the ruins of Xerxes with nothing but a cloak he found in the country's outskirts and the clothes on his back. If he could help it, he was determined that he would never _ever_ return.

* * *

Hohenheim folded a pair of button-up shirts into the suitcase he'd retrieved from the basement. As he'd passed the boys' room on the way down, he'd had to be careful not to make too much noise so he didn't wake them. He tried not to think about their adorable little faces and whether they would miss him. He was a sentimental old dolt. He'd cry if he wasn't careful. Now he stood in the master bedroom, trying his best to prepare for what would surely be a years-long trip while still packing light.

He was, at least, doing a decent job of it. After centuries of wandering he was nothing if not practiced at travel. Still, his heart weighed him down like a ton of sand, making him move sluggishly, dragging his feet with every step. He couldn't find it in himself to pick up the pace when he was so reluctant to go.

"Dear!" called Trisha quietly in the hallway and Hohenheim turned expectantly towards the door. She gave him a small smile as she entered the room, holding up a fist-sized bag and a round covered tin. "I made you some biscuits to take with you! And some _ajil_ for the road."

Hohenheim smiled as she tucked them carefully into the corner of the case. The Xerxian mix of nuts and dried fruit known as _ajil_ had often been associated with parties and the new year celebration but it also made a fantastic trail mix. It was so like Trisha to think of such a thing to comfort and nourish him on his journey. 

"You didn't have to do that," he murmured, keeping his voice down.

"Of course I did," she whispered back. "Even you get hungry. Are you sure you'll be alright on your own?"

Hohenheim added a razor and comb to the luggage. "I can handle myself. It's you and the boys I'm worried about."

Trisha chuckled. "We're not the ones gallivanting off to save the world, sweetie."

He conceded the point with a nod and a hum. 

Wordlessly, Trisha joined him, pulling his favorite tie from the wardrobe and folding it carefully on top of his shirts. For a time they were quiet as they packed, just basking in each other's company, allowing hands to linger whenever they brushed one another. Hohenheim knew it was the last time they would be together in this way for a long time and so he allowed himself to drink in the moment: the rustle of Trisha's dress, the warmth of her side pressing companionably against his, the absent thought that she was nearly finished with the romance novel on the bedside table and how he should like to ask her how it ended when he returned.

Down the hall, softly rumbled the boys snoring. The light occasional puffs and muttering were Alphonse, always with some new mundane miracle to share, even in his sleep. The thunderous sawing was Edward, probably sleeping again with his mouth wide open and his belly hanging out, not a care in the world. He hoped they would be happy with the swing he'd fixed. He hoped they played on it often. He hoped they swung on it over and over every day—loved it until it broke again and when he came back he'd have to fix it for them once more.

He didn't want to go. _He didn't want to go._ He wanted to stay here forever, wanted to rip the Philosopher's Stone out of his body, wanted to tear his immortality to shreds so that he could grow old and die and never be without them. But if he didn't go, history would repeat and he would have no one to blame but himself for once again failing to stop it. Trisha and the boys and Pinako would either die here in Amestris eleven years from now or, assuming Hohenheim sent them away but Homunculus didn't stop with Amestris (and there was no reason to believe that he would,) they would die outside of it shortly after. 

It had broken his heart to tell Trisha "I have to go" and he had feared she would scream at him or cry or try to stop him from leaving. 

But although she'd been sad, had let sorrow drag down her face and bend her spine, she had looked at him with a brave smile. "Okay," she'd said. "Of course I'll wait for you," she'd promised, and Hohenheim knew he could believe her. There was no one in the world he trusted more—no one in his four hundred years he'd felt more safe with.

The sun was coming up when they finally closed the suitcase lid. Hints of reds and yellows peeked in through the window, painting the bedroom in the kind of magical warmth that was fleeting and yet always seemed timeless. The two of them kissed, sweet and sad and long, his hand brushing through her hair, hers cupping his cheek. When they finally pulled apart their arms stayed wrapped around each other and their foreheads rested together in a weary embrace.

Eventually, she carried his suitcase out into the hallway for him, as if hoping to keep some piece of him with her for as long as possible, as if he wouldn't be leaving her with their house and their children. As if he wasn't leaving her with his heart. But in the end, she handed the suitcase to him at the door without protest. Hohenheim used to believe that he shouldn't open himself up to people, that if he gave anything away, others would simply take it for themselves and never give it back. But Trisha handed the suitcase back to him without a second thought. She stood in the doorway and smiled at him and she let him go.

Hohenheim left Resembool with bittersweet heaviness in his heart and a suitcase carrying biscuits and _ajil_ swinging from his hand. It had taken everything he had not to cry when he walked out the door but now he knew in every fiber of his being what love was. Someday, without a doubt, he was determined to return.


End file.
